If we were to believe researchers from the University of Arizona and eight other institutions, the internet of tomorrow should be cheaper, faster and generally more reliable than the current one.
The collaborative research project is using an $18.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to try and bring optoelectronic technology to its full potential, thus hoping to solve the problem of a limited capacity internet.
“CIAN is aimed at transforming the Internet to a high-speed network that uses less energy, is more reliable so that it reconfigures itself around network impairments, is scalable to make it suitable for a growing number of end users, and is not too costly,” said Nasser Peyghambarian, chair of photonics and aasers in the College of Optical Sciences at the UA.
“The UA and USC and seven other university partners are working together on improving the reliability of the network as well as the network speed and cost,” he said.
“We’re using optics to enable higher capacity communications,” said Alan Willner, Steven and Kathryn Sample Chair in Engineering of the USC Dornsife College. Willner and Columbia professor Keren Bergman are leading the system and networking research for the group.
“I can send 10 gigabits per second across the backbone of the national network,” Willner said. “The problem is, how do you get 10 gigabits to every home, every access point?”
Now of course all of this will be great . . . until the ISPs take a hold of it. Because once that happens, the new technology will be anything but rainbows and unicorns.
via physorg
